When asked to describe a great leader, which type of person springs to mind? The all-guns-blazing, exuberant networker? Or how about the dominant visionary who flips tradition on its head? Certainly not the understated loner who listens more than they speak, right?
Early in your career you dreamed about making it into management. But now that you’re there, your dream is turning into a nightmare. Rather than elevating your status, the corner office seems to be alienating you from your team who accept your guidance out of obligation rather than loyalty. So, what’s going on?
You're outgoing; he's reserved. She researches everything to death; you rely on hunches. Does this sound familiar?
You and your employees can fall into any one of the 16 different personality types, so don't be surprised if you find yourself supervising someone who is your diametric opposite. But, don't fret! Follow these ideas to manage personality opposites effectively.
Diversity is always valuable to have in workplace teams, but the strengths of each personality type need unique support to emerge. Employees who are introverts may especially prove to be challenging to work with for some extraverted managers or teammates, so it's crucial to take a few specific steps when working with them. Use these three tips to help you bring your introverted employees out of their shells so that they can make their best contribution to the organization.
It's no surprise that Judging and Perceiving types do things differently at work, especially when it comes to managing their business goals. Judgers approach life in a structured manner, creating plans to fulfill tasks in a predictable way. Perceivers, on the other hand, tend to feel constrained by structure, as they prefer to keep their options open and use their time to explore problems as they come. To a Perceiver, a Judging personality type is rigid and single-minded, while to a Judger, the Perceiver is an aimless drifter.
In the personality typing system developed by Myers and Briggs, the Thinking/Feeling pairing describes how a person makes decisions. A Thinking type uses objectivity to solve a problem, even when considering a moral or aesthetic puzzle. Feelers, on the other hand, make decisions based on their internal belief system. Feelers also solve problems using a system guided by their internal values and motivations rather than extrinsic facts. Because of these opposing styles, Thinkers and Feelers face challenges when tasked with solving problems as a team.
Disagreement is inevitable when you work with others; people have diverse opinions, contexts and viewpoints that can sometimes escalate to full-blown conflict. How you handle that conflict determines whether you get a productive outcome or the conflict destroys your team.
One common source of workplace conflict is the clash between thinking-judging (TJ) and feeling-perceiving (FP) types on the MBTI scale. Fortunately, it's possible to cut through the dissonance by understanding what makes these dichotomous personalities tick.
Who steps up to the plate when you establish a group-brainstorm environment? All too often, it's the go-getting ENTJs, ESFPs and other extroverted types who take the lead — often because they associate leadership with extroverted traits such as speaking up, taking control and directing others. The problem however, is that these dynamic voices end up drowning out the introverts in the group. Here's how to put the "I" in "team" and help your organization's introverts thrive in a group environment.
When I worked as a consultant using the MBTI®1, there was one type of call I dreaded: the calls from firms who wanted to start using the assessment in their hiring process. They’d heard about the MBTI® and its popularity in organizations. Maybe they’d even assessed some of their existing employees, with inspiring results. Now, how great would it be if they could use it to weed out all the undesirable candidates in their hiring pool?
Personality is at the center of how we interact with each other on a daily basis. It provides a framework for understanding why our lives look like our own, and not like our neighbors. Whether we’re choosing a job, a partner, or even a home, our personalities drive our choices and shape the paths that our lives take.
THE FINE PRINT:
Myers-Briggs® and MBTI® are registered trademarks of the MBTI Trust, Inc., which has no affiliation with this site. Truity offers a free personality test based on Myers and Briggs' types, but does not offer the official MBTI® assessment. For more information on the Myers Briggs Type Indicator® assessment, please go here.
The Five Love Languages® is a registered trademark of The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, which has no affiliation with this site. You can find more information about the five love languages here.